The subject matter herein relates generally to cable assemblies that include cable harnesses for interconnecting communication systems or devices.
Communication systems, such as routers, servers, switches, redundant arrays of inexpensive disks (RAIDs), uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs), host bus adapters (HBAs), supercomputers, and the like, may be large complex systems that have a number of components interconnected to one another through different types of cable assemblies. For example, cable backplane (or cable midplane) systems include several daughter card assemblies that are interconnected to one another through cable assemblies. The daughter card assemblies of such systems may also be interconnected with remote components or devices through different types of cable assemblies. An example of such cable assemblies includes pluggable input/output (I/O) cable assemblies. Pluggable I/O cable assemblies may be configured for various industry standards, including small-form factor pluggable (SFP), enhanced SFP (SFP+), quad SFP (QSFP), C form-factor pluggable (CFP), and 10 Gigabit SFP, which is often referred to as XFP. Other standardized cable assemblies include serial attached (SA) small computer system interface (SCSI) cable assemblies, which may also be referred to as SAS cable assemblies.
Cable assemblies may include a cable harness (or multicore cable) and two or more cable connectors that are interconnected through the cable harness. The cable harness includes multiple individual cables having corresponding conductors. By way of example, the individual cables may include twisted-pair cables or twin-axial cables. The cable harness may also include a shielding layer that surrounds the individual cables and a protective jacket that surrounds shielding layer. Each of the conductors of the individual cables is terminated to a corresponding electrical contact of a cable connector. Cable assemblies may also include an assembly housing that surrounds the cable connector and a ferrule that is coupled to the assembly housing and the cable harness. The ferrule may crimp the shielding layer of the cable harness to electrically couple the shielding layer to the assembly housing.
For many cable assemblies, the ferrule is typically fed onto the cable harness before the assembly housing is constructed. For some cable assemblies, however, it may be undesirable or impossible to position the ferrule onto the cable harness before constructing the assembly housing. In addition to this challenge, the shielding layer may be cut and spread (or flared) outward to cover a cable exit of the assembly housing. The spreading of the shielding layer may create gaps that decrease the effectiveness of the shielding layer.
A need remains for a cable assembly having a cable harness that is more reliably grounded to a housing of the cable assembly.